Chapter 2.c
THE MANAGEMENT OF CULTURE
Let’s look forward. We discovered that it is of primary importance to learn to manage our culture and its development; albeit with a certain degree of unconsciousness, in part, we are already doing it and then we must not start from scratch; whatever objective we choose, we know from experience that to reach it we must make the most of the tools that nature has made available; to go against nature is like swimming against the tide: we do not get anything and we consume many energies. First of all, then, let’s see what natural tools we have to manage our cultural heritage.
2.c.1 – The brain is our command bridge?
The brain is our command bridge?
The brain is the organ deputed to the production of culture, is the home of intelligence, of will, of fantasy and memory; the human mind consists of a set of brain activities: such activities produce the thoughts, receive and process the external stimuli, recall the memories; when we think we all “feel” in our mind our thoughts, as if there was an inner voice, but it is important to note that this does not always happen; there are numerous experimental tests that show us that only a part of our thoughts is heard and the same is true for the reception of stimuli. In other words there are some thoughts that we know that we think and others we do not, some things we know that we have seen or heard and some that we do not know; all our thoughts that are perceived are told conscience, while the unaware thoughts are called expression of the “unconscious”; please note that the mind is one, but only a part of it is perceived by us; unconscious and consciousness are thus separated only to our perception, but generally have a common work to carry out with harmony and consistency, since they are parts of the same mind, which is also the result of biological evolution that, as we have seen, has grown by creating organs and bodies increasingly complex, but always based on the symbiosis and on the specialization and always equipped with well determined and selected features.
We all, when we draw any figure, guide our hands full with conscience of it; if we talk instead with a friend during a walk, we do not think what our legs do: they seem to move alone and the same goes for all automatic movements, many of which often we don’t even know to make; anyway, legs can’t walk alone, these movements are controlled by the brain, but not in an aware way.
It is important to note that the concept of automatic movement is very different from the innate or instinctive movement: we can let ourselves be absorbed by the speech with a friend even when we drive a car or a bicycle and surely they are not instinctive movements provided by nature: they are automatic, but learned, not innate; this reveals that the hidden part of our mind is able to learn, both directly and through culture. To use an analogy with informatics, the unconscious is able to perform functions in parallel while we are focused on an activity which in that time is considered a priority, but this functions will not only be managed by a service software that does not require updating as those instinctive, but also by increasingly complex software and in addition overlap with continuous updates.
ROYAL BOX
SIGMUND FREUD 
2.c.2 – Do we have a mental archive?
Do we have a mental archive?
It was shown that in a given situation, our mind chooses automatically between different types of behavior previously learned and that these choices are carried out according to criteria such as moral values, in turn learned culturally; it follows that the unconscious plays a key part in the management of behavior and culture, we all have in our head a sort of archive in which we keep the models of behavior and reasoning, as well as an automatic management system culturally programmed. A natural instrument essential for the management of culture therefore exists and it is an automatic system for the memory management based on learning.
Science now tells us that we are able to do almost everything without notice: we can move, communicate, feel, remember, react, decide, learn; the unconscious is able to do what the conscience does, the only limit seems that it is not able to do projects; if we think about it, anyway, we see that consciousness develops any project on the basis of wishes originated by the unconscious and then this function is a delegated and subordinate prerogative.
Even now it is a broadly shared view that consciousness is the most noble part of man, having the task of controlling our ancient bestial instincts, but experimental data show us a very different reality: in most cases the conscience has a subordinate role compared to his occult counterpart, which coordinates instincts, desires and emotions, even the most noble of them like love, altruism, manages the judgment criteria, including moral values, which are imposed on the consciousness as a product already finished, in the form of orders to be executed or directives to be observed without discussion.
The main role of consciousness seems to be to meet the unconscious identified needs and therefore it is not in his nature to criticize the orders received by it; is not reasonable to rely on conscience to recognize and change bad habits or wrong attitudes because it will always consider them right or at least acceptable; it is necessary an aid of cultural type, a form of education of the unconscious because, as we have seen, learning is the basis for setting the automatic management.
We have to well consider, however, that educating the unconscious does not mean doing the brain washing, conditioning a person against his will or his knowledge: when we learn to drive the car we are perfectly aware, but in the end we guide without thinking; to educate or receive an education remains a conscious act even when the unconscious is involved, and it is this one that always stays hidden, not the teaching.
There remains the problem to acknowledge or refuse that wrong attitudes we are used to accept; even in this case, to find the solution, we must to refer to our past experience and to our nature; to all of us has happened in life to change opinions, habits and tastes; the unconscious is able to correct itself, it is also a form of learning, a response to environmental stimuli. We can therefore conclude that the mechanism of learning must be understood to be better exploited in its natural function.
ROYAL BOX
ERICH FROMM
2.c.3 – Do we live in a real or imaginary world?
Do we live in a real or imaginary world?
A newborn of a few months brings everything to mouth to study and explore the world around him; when is one year old, grabs and touches everything and it would also be able to put the fingers into a socket; when we grow, our behavior changes: we are still curious, but of new things, the experiences of early childhood are now settled and consolidated; when we are grown, we do no longer need to touch a wall to know that is solid or ice to know that is cold. A good part of the world that we perceive is therefore made by our memories, but the experiences are not but a simple memory: to learn from experience means not only remember the feelings had, but also to have assessed them, associating them with relations such cause and effect, and so on, and these associations and evaluations are undoubtedly the result of our ability to imagine. A part of our world is then made up by our fantasy and proof is the fact that for many centuries we have lived with the conviction that the Earth was the center of the universe and that everything revolves around it, or the that the Earth itself has always been considered flat and not spherical.
When one of our certainties falls, we realize that the world is not like we had imagined, we understand that, at least in part, until that moment we were living in an imaginary world, but on the other hand our imaginary world seemed to us absolutely genuine and consistent, gave no problems, therefore why doubting?
Why look for the real world, complicated and difficult to know in details, when there are hundreds of them more easy to imagine, understand and master? To imagine a reality consistent with our personal experiences can make us save time and efforts in long, complicated or even prohibitive research, and thus allows us to determine how to act with speed, safety and minimum effort. Indeed, sometimes there is the possibility to act the wrong way, but the alternative is not to act in time or not acting at all. How could we live as adults if we had to re-control everything all the times, tasting and touching everything like little children?
The imaginary world that is being built is then a tool for survival that allows to move in a world difficult to understand; it is therefore one of our major evolutionary strategies.
If we consider that:
– the reach of our senses is limited and allows partial, sometimes insufficient, knowledge of the world around us;
– a careful study of the world is long, arduous and sometimes futile, as it doesn’t allows to act promptly;
it seems plausible the hypothesis that nature has designed and selected our mind not to understand the real world, but to imagine an equivalent that is the most suitable possible to meet the demands of daily life. The main purpose is to allow a suitable behavior for survival, using the minimum time and saving energy, according to the principle of a healthy mental economy leading to maximum efficiency.
Biology shows us that experience is based on feelings received from the organs of sense stimulated by the world around us; in this case it is called direct experience and It is certainly the most ancient form. From contacts with parents, friends and teachers, then, we indirectly obtain also the outcome of the experience of the others, acquiring the so-called cultural tradition.
We also know that every experience is a mixture of memories, associations and personal assessments and that the memory of the experience so structured, forms in the mind a model of the same that can be recalled at will. Repeatable experience, accumulating, forms a model of the world that allows us to predict events so that we can enjoy them if positive or avoid them if negative. Learn from one’s experience means then having made a representation of the world and having used the same to determine our future, as we do with a map to determine the route of a journey. This is an automated process started by experience.
It is good to highlight that, once created a good model, this can be used several times and for different purposes; the representation of the world is not so linked to a particular scope, but it is good to a thousand uses and therefore it is appropriate to dedicate to that representation as an activity for its own sake. It is no coincidence that nature exploits this principle by curiosity, that is through an instinct that leads to explore the environment without an immediate practical purpose, and it is still no coincidence that this instinct is deeply rooted in the human soul.
At this point, once understood the origin of mental models is intrinsically linked to the development of appropriate behavior for survival, it should be noted that an error in the model that does not compromise this behavior, may be considered acceptable by our nature. Leading this reasoning to its extreme development, even a model completely wrong but leading to the right behavior can be accepted for survival purposes and be equivalent to the perfectly correct model; after all, it is one more valuable opportunity to find the right way. Finally, if a model is better suited to the development of such a behavior, though more distant from reality, this model will be even better for survival compared to reality.
From the above it follows that there we must not be surprised if the human mind is programmed to satisfy its curiosity with fantasies that have little to do with the real world. What our curiosity seeks is not a true representation of reality, but an equivalent model that leads to maximum effect with the minimum effort.
ROYAL BOX
CRISTOFORO COLOMBO
2.c.4 – Mental closure is a natural phenomenon?
Mental closure is a natural phenomenon?
Our life is based on the vision that we have of the world, that is the mental model we have built to orient ourselves among the laws of nature, to entertain human relations, to decide what is good and what is bad, to define our role in family, in society and in the universe: this is a real mental map for moving in the real world. As we cannot have a magic crystal ball telling us how the world works, we must make it with our senses and our capacity of imagination; what we get is not the truth, but a model that is equivalent to the proper behavior for survival.
This model is created slowly over time; from early childhood it begins to form in our minds, based on personal experiences to then integrate with cultural tradition; in our minds, the image of the world, society and even of ourselves must be consistent with both our experiences and with what we have been taught at home and at school and what we have been told by our relatives, friends and television. To arrange in a consistent manner all this impressive amount of data, i.e. creating a mental map that is reliable, is a work as complex as fundamental to our lives, but that is likely to be destabilized by every new experience.
When in the early seventeenth century, the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei said that the universe does not run around the Earth, as we believed then, but that it is the Earth that rotates on its axis like all the planets, there was great scandal and Galileo was forced by the strength to retract his theories. What was so shocking in the new model of the world? What was so difficult to accept? The news was supposed to be totally irrelevant to anyone who was not an astronomer; no carpenter, farmer or blacksmith would have seen his life changing if the new theory was accepted and the same can be said of the nobles and priests, since neither in the Bible nor in the Gospels was written anything in contrast with it, but the appearance in this case is deceiving us; the centrality of the Earth, the fact that everything revolved around it, was the main objective confirmation of the centrality of man in Creation, and therefore of our importance in the eyes of God; it was an indirect evidence of the same existence of God and thus justified both the religious and the political authority, at that time based on the divine Law. What should be a simple astronomical discovery risked to undermine the faith and political stability of entire nations, since demolished the model of the world which they were based on and that nobody dared to question. What happened in general can happen even at the individual level; a proud and self-assured man for being estimated for his work, with which manages to maintain his family and to say to himself to be a good father, can psychologically go in pieces in case of loss of work, although no due to a fault of his, and feel to be a looser. If each novelty may raise doubts on our precious view of the world, if this is really so fragile, why there isn’t a crisis every week? How do we avoid this danger? The answer that nature has given to this problem is a incredibly simple: at the introduction of new experiences, also cultural, our brain strives to update its vision of the world with minor modifications in order to always keep it consistent with all the experiences made up to that point; but when small changes are not enough, because it is difficult to enter the new experience in the old context, we unconsciously evaluate if it’s worth to accept the news, threatening to topple our system of beliefs and consequently put our lives in a crisis; if to accept the new experience is not essential, the same is therefore refused, giving rise to the so-called closed-mindedness, the refusal of the evidence of the facts, the obscurantism. This is, after all, a further application of the mental economy principle; to completely or in large part revise a model that took years to be built and that was effective and functional, can be very expensive and risky because there is no guarantee of finding a better one in short time;, in terms of survival is therefore logical that our mind stubbornly refuses to change its system of beliefs and hence its attachment to it is only seemingly irrational.
ROYAL BOX
IMRE LAKATOS
ABSTRACTS
n. 9 – THE MENTAL MAP
2.c.5 – Does a psychological pollution exist?
Does a psychological pollution exist?
When we see that beliefs are totally unfounded, we call them superstitions, if they relate to natural events and magic or religious practices, or prejudices if they relate to human nature and society. However, we are aware of the groundlessness of beliefs only when we judge those different from ours, since each of us is not usually able to assess his own beliefs.
Superstition and prejudice are traditionally considered fruit of ignorance, but according to the above it is evident that they are natural phenomena, due to the amazing process that produces human knowledge starting from a few sensations and a lot of imagination (or intuition); if we recall that most of our beliefs are not due to direct experience, but to our cultural tradition, we must admit that prejudices and superstitions are often the result of our culture and not of ignorance. The examples are many: discrimination for women or religious minorities, the various forms of racism and beliefs in the various magical practices are clear signs of cultural origin ranging from people to people and over time.
The false beliefs seem real to us until it is proven otherwise, and often even later, if there are no better alternatives; they have been accepted because apparently create no problems to our lives, but the negative consequences may arise even after many years when they are deeply rooted in our mentality. It is not easy to revise the consolidated convictions, but in a quickly changing world, the updating of our system of belief becomes a necessity more and more frequent, because it is increasingly easier that in our minds there are ideas not only wrong, but even harmful in the new formed context.
The widespread belief that drinking alcoholic beverages is a real man attitude has brought to very serious consequences ,especially after the use of the car has become common, since the number of deaths in motor vehicle accidents caused by alcohol is very high every year; this custom caused serious problems even before, for example cirrhosis of the liver, but people had to drink a lot more and longer in time for risking their lives. As another example, we can cite the belief that rulers always, or almost always, act in the interest of the homeland and citizens, a belief that always brings the masses to die in time of war for others’ interests.
We must then distinguish between false beliefs and harmful convictions: the first are part of our nature, are unavoidable, but generally do not give problems, the second are those that bring consequences of a certain gravity. According to the logics of nature, when an idea involves too much trouble, the same should be replaced with a better one, but this happens only if our mind perceives the real cause of these troubles; for example, standards of hygiene are rationally distributed only after the discovery that diseases were caused by bacteria. Sometimes though, not even the awareness of the case is sufficient: the lung cancer has been associated with cigarettes, but as it is a relatively rare phenomenon, is perceived by smokers as a misfortune that hits more unfortunate smokers; for them the real cause is bad luck and not the use of cigarettes; a similar reasoning can be done for the excess of speed or alcohol abuse.
Our tolerance levels about the problems that afflict us are too high; we must improve the processes by which freeing us from bad habits and harmful beliefs because our mind is increasingly full of harmful ideas that, together, form a sort of psychological pollution that leads us to move against our interests. This mass of rubbish ideas, which may result from our cultural tradition or incorrect personal assessments, sometimes can have a positive function: the belief in the evil eye, for example, helps us to overcome fear of the unknown, identifying a fictitious cause against whom there is a remedy; however, after that the magician in turn has taken away the evil eye, we can deal with renewed security and overcome a difficult period, a thing impossible before, without a cause to be eliminated to solve our problems; similar superstitions become harmful only when we go to magicians to cure a disease, for the rest, against misfortune, it works well and would be a mistake to remove them without replacing them with something else.
We all know that high speed is the main cause of accidents, but the incident is a rare event that happens only to the most unfortunate; it follows that when we go out and run with our car, we think that the incident will ever happen to someone else. At our first incident, however, even if slight, our attitude will change and for a long time, sometimes forever, we’ll drive more cautiously remembering that this problem can happen to us. As we said, learning of unconscious depends on the experience: our conscience was aware of the risks of high speed even before the accident, but the unconscious, the dominant part of our mind, had the need of a good scare to fully realize it and change the perception of danger. It is therefore clear that to combat psychological pollution is often not enough to rely on our conscience, no matter how well informed, it becomes necessary to improve the perception of reality through appropriate and controlled experiences.
PALCO D’ONORE
MASSIMO POLIDORO
CONCETTI IN PILLOLE
n. 10 – THE PSYCOLOGICAL POLLUTION 
2.c.6 – Does philosophy have a biological function?
Does philosophy have a biological function?
An ancient tradition dates back to the famous philosopher Pythagoras the first definition of philosophy; he shows how philosophy is a continuing endless search of wisdom, a perfect wisdom to which we can bring close, but which in its entirety is reserved only to the gods.
Over time, changing the way to classify the different fields of knowledge, the term philosophy has had many variations of meaning; anyway the conception of Pythagoras retains its relevance because it is easy to understand, and because it is consistent with the modern naturalistic concept based on biological finalism that we’ll now introduce.
The human being is by nature curious and that curiosity has a biological function; indeed, it impels us to know the environment around us and accrue experience that will be useful during their lifetime. The information we gather are ordered, associated and interpreted; all this work leads to design the well-known mental map by which we orient ourselves both in everyday life and in long-term projects. Even if we are not aware of it, our curiosity and our imagination have therefore a practical purpose.
The development of the mental model is normally done in a spontaneous, not intentional manner. This work is not based only on personal experiences, but also on a cultural baggage that the community transmits to us. It thus happens that our vision of the world heavily depends on our cultural environment and that in such environment everybody sees everything in a way similar to others. The formation of this image of the world is then the result of a research both collective and individual, and this research is basically the philosophy, according to the thought of Pythagoras. From a biological point of view, philosophy is therefore an effort to understand the world in order to be able to live better, is an evolutionary strategy with a clear biological function.
With the term philosophy we often mean also the result of the above research, i.e. the created image; then we can say that a certain philosophy consists in a particular way of seeing the world, a particular mental model.
We can bring together the two previous meanings in the following definition: specific study, intentional or not, meant as a search and form of knowledge about the nature of the world, of man and of their relations, aiming at an overall view of reality.
This concept, as it is formed, expresses a naturalistic vision of philosophy and proposes itself as one of the possible solutions to the secular problem of giving a definition of philosophy.
It should be remembered that in the study of this discipline, two basic approaches are used:
• the historical one, which follows the evolution of thought under consideration over time;
• the one based on fundamental issues or problems.
As in a map there are the cardinal points, so in our ideal map we have some truths, some basic concepts which are particularly important to guide our behavior: what is good and what is evil, what role we have in the universe and life, why this role was assigned to us, why nature sometimes is cruel, and so on.
To locate these basic concepts is equivalent to finding an answer to the so-called key questions that every man asks: Who are we? Where do we come from? What is the meaning of life? What is our role in the universe?
These questions can best be summarized as follows:
• What is our role in life and in the universe?
• What should we do accordingly?
It is important to remember that it is possible to obtain a good behavior, correct and functional for the survival of the species even with absolutely incorrect answers. The same can be said of any successful behavior that meets the favor of a population; this may explain the proliferation of schools of thought so diverse and in perennial disagreement.
Although the real purpose of our curiosity and our imagination is the creation of an imaginary but functional world, we have to remember that for being functional, a model must have a degree of consistency with the experience; the truth is therefore generally regarded as a supreme good and shown as a main or unique object of research, even if we should normally be satisfied with some surrogate.
THE FAMOUS CASE
BARUCH SPINOZA
2.c.7 – What binds the philosophy to religion?
What binds the philosophy to religion?
We know that our cultural environment affects the way we see reality; Indeed, one of the ways in which this happens is through religious education, in fact with it are handed down behavior patterns and values, it is justified the social practice with its roles and often it is also established a relation with nature, maybe turned into a god; in religion therefore there are answers to fundamental questions of philosophy. It is then possible to conclude that in religions there is generally a major philosophical component with the peculiar feature of not being criticizable as contained in a sacred tradition.
The presentation of the universe that we find in religious philosophy seems to be crystallized in the sacred tradition; in fact, history teaches us that even the religious models evolve, but in very long time, so there are no major differences from a generation to another. Faster changes create scandal, social disorder and generally are branded as heresy. Religions provide some basic references for formation of a basic mental model common to everyone; then everyone will do the personal integrations that will not overturn the original model, except in exceptional cases.
At this point we may ask why there is a philosophy as discipline of study separate from religion and sometimes in conflict with it but, as we said, religions tends to set their own models, keep them, but they don’t change them and then the philosophical inquiry, namely the development of new models, is an activity external to the religion.
On a large population of believers, there is often a small percentage of dissatisfied people that accept with difficulty the religious education received. These religious misfits develop a personal belief, a model that will diverge in a more marked way, compared to the others, from the common religious model; in other words they will do a philosophical inquiry without the usual sacred constraints. Their intellectual work can make a great contribution to the evolution of traditional models in case this is absorbed in a the second time by the dominant religion or, otherwise, may give rise to a non-religious philosophical tradition.
It is also known that certain philosophies independent by religion have with time acquired a sacralization process, thus becoming real religions.
We can conclude that religion and philosophy are closely linked:
• religion enhances and transmits the results of philosophical research
• philosophy contributes to the historical evolution of religions
• philosophy meets certain religious needs of the human psyche, like that of having a mental model having the function of moral reference and psychological support.
ROYAL BOX
TOMMASO D’AQUINO
2.c.8 – What binds philosophy to science?
What binds philosophy to science?
The word science has two basic meanings:
– a type of knowledge, a discipline that studies a particular subject;
– experimental science, a discipline that uses the experimental method for its research.
Clearly, philosophy is a science according to the first meaning, but there are Important links with experimental science:
The role, and accordingly the value, attributed to experimental science is a problem arose in the philosophical context.
The validity of the sciences in general is a philosophical question.
The experimental science today provides the largest contribution to the study of nature, which is an essential part of philosophical research.
Once again it appears how the study of nature and its laws is the real key for understanding the phenomena, including cultural ones, that affect us, to be able to govern them to our advantage, and how disciplines considered distant like philosophy and science, have indeed very close connections, connections that are easily identifiable among the fumes of psychological pollution.
ROYAL BOX
THOMAS HOBBES
2.c.9 – The experimental science differs from superstition?
The experimental science differs from superstition?
For experimental science is meant all the amount of knowledge obtained using the experimental method; at present its validity is universally recognized, but not many people know what is its value; what distinguishes science from superstition? If we ask to a man why he daily reads his horoscope and why he believes in the validity of astrology, he will probably answer giving the two following basic reasons:
– because it works, as generally, according to his personal experience, the predictions made come true;
– because everybody reads the horoscope and then we all believe in it, is not just a personal opinion, but there is something objective and universally recognized.
If instead we ask why he believes in modern science, the answers will be of this type:
– because it works, because generally, as the direct experience confirms, the forecast of science come true: bulbs light up when the switch is pressed, the cars start moving when we turn the key;
– because everybody does, it also taught at school that we can trust science and therefore is something objective and universally recognized.
What then distinguishes science from superstition? For our average man nothing, absolutely nothing: science seems to be one more superstition and in his mind it is actually the way; in fact we know that every person lives in a world which is in large part imaginary and is then naturally superstitious and also is influenced by the public opinion as he is a highly social animal; the common people do not know why science is better than the old beliefs, but has no problems in accepting it like any new superstition even only vaguely plausible
This situation helps us to understand why many forms of superstition continue to survive despite the spread of scientific knowledge and how false beliefs that are attributed to science itself also spread: all of us have heard that in case of premature birth, it is better that the baby born in the seventh month rather than in the eighth; most of us are convinced that this is a scientific truth confirmed by modern medicine, but it is not so; all the experimental data deny it and no doctor has ever tried, in reality it seems that it is an ancient belief dating back to the ancient philosophical school of Pythagoras, where the number seven was considered a lucky number. How come in these cases we can’t see the difference between a scientific assertion and one that is not? Simple, because we never do it, in fact to us only superstitions actually exist.
The difference between experimental science and more or less possible beliefs exists instead, it is substantial and is located in the famous experimental method, of which we talked so much, but that nobody knows; there are, however, also significant similarities due to their common origin i.e. is the natural process by which the human brain produces knowledge.
ROYAL BOX
FRANCIS BACON
ABSTRACTS
n. 13 – SUPERSTIZIONI E SCIENZE
2.c.10 – What is the experimental method?
What is the experimental method?
The experimental method was designed for studying natural phenomena and is structured in three phases that make it truly special.
The first phase is that of observation and measurement; the phenomenon to be studied must be observed; the exam should not vary by changing the observer and must therefore be independent from the person who observes; in this case it is said that the observation is objective. In order to be objective and accurate, it is searched in the phenomenon all that can be measured. If you ask ten people if a table we chose is large or small, it is very likely that some will say that it is large and others small, because everyone compares with his own table at home or to the large one their grandma had; if we ask them instead how big this table is and we give them carpenter meters to measure it, all of them will give the same answer, except for measurement errors, of course. The use of measuring tools, further to making the observations objective, all referring to the same units of measure, makes them even more precise and accurate, in accordance with the precision of the utilized instrument.
It is appropriate to mention the fact that the accuracy of the instruments is always limited, as there is inevitably a margin of error; for example, with a normal tailoring meter we cannot see differences of a tenth of a millimeter, but for the tailor this type of imprecision is irrelevant; it is however important to highlight that there are methods to know how is the error extent and therefore how our instrument is precise; this way, we know of how much the error was and if such error is relevant or not. The scientist, like the tailor, knows that his measures are not infinitely precise, but they are enough accurate; even if from a geometric or mathematical point of view they will always be a little wrong, the competent scientist always knows of how much they are inaccurate and can evaluate whether the error is small enough to be negligible.
A new element of this method is therefore the accuracy and a more rigorous objectivity.
The second phase consists in developing a mathematical or ideal model. For taking the measures you need to know what to measure, but a natural phenomenon often involves several different factors (temperature, distance, weight, speed, area, volume and many others); a scholar from the first observations must therefore make an analytical and schematization work, identify all the different factors / units involved in the issue and the relations between them, until he finds a main cause to be isolated to study the effects on the measures linked to it. A classic example is the fall of heavy objects in which the main cause is weight, while the effect is the movement, the speed, the acceleration and so on; the secondary components will be after added, like the force of friction, the irregular shape of the object, the mechanical constraints and other factors.
During the observation therefore there is already an interpretation of the facts and a simplification of reality that tends to form a model in which only one cause acts, and in which one effect at a time is examined. In this way the phenomenon is studied a piece at a time, step by step, gradually finding the appropriate units to be measured.
At this stage, the phenomenon is represented through the variations in its characteristics, whose measures are listed in appropriate tables and whose relations are now those between numbers (measures) usually represented with mathematical formulas called functions. The result is a mathematical model of the phenomenon, a sort of geometric representation, as precise as the measures on which is based are; this model becomes progressively more complex as new measures are added (both related to causes and effects), but it still remains a model in which something may be missing, although something secondary if the model has been well constructed.
From simple observation, as accurate as it can be, then we moved to something which is the fruit of our mind, a mental model having mathematical precision; this is the second step of the method and there is no doubt that this is an improved version, more rigorous, more objective, of the natural process that we all use in forming our personal mental models. The purpose is basically the same: to form in our mind a picture, a description of reality, that is understandable and that tells us how nature works, to satisfy our curiosity and take all possible advantages.
The third phase is the experimental verification. We saw that the observations are objective, while for forming a mathematical model we spoke of scholar intuition through which are assumed relations of cause and effect between the variations of the different factors; there is therefore a subjective contribution that may give rise to two incidents:
– by the same observations, several different models can arise, born by interpretations of the various scholars;
– further observations may deny the assumed relations.
In the first case, the different models are all consistent with the observations made and then perfectly equivalent in describing the nature; we have already seen a classic example in astronomy: is Earth rotating on its own axis or are the stars that revolve around the Earth? In both cases we’d see the Sun, the Moon and all the stars moving from east to the west, then how things really are? How to determine which is the right model or the closest to the truth? The scientist has to add new observations to the starting ones that are consistent with a single model and deny all the others; for this purpose, various models are used to make predictions about what should happen in situations not yet observed, and when the various models lead to different estimates in a specific situation, then a test is designed, called experiment, to verify which forecast is the right one; this is the experimental verification, the third important step of the method, on which outcome depends the choice of the best model.
Anyway, nothing guarantees that later a new model, consistent with the new observations, would not appear, in which case new verification experiments will have to be devised for selecting the best model.
In the second case suggested above, it might happen that appear, perhaps during the experimental tests, new observations that deny even the latest model left; in this case we must admit that the model is not valid at all times, but only for a limited number of cases and therefore we must start again searching for a better model, perhaps by changing the old one.
In any event, the refining and validity of the models depends on the number of cases observed, i.e. on the number of experiments made; the experimental verification leads to two important results:
– it allows to select the best models;
– it allows to determine the extent of its validity, or under what circumstances is valid, waiting for a better model.
It follows that if the research has produced only one model, and it is always subjected to experimental verification, because scientists know that its validity may however be limited, that it is not an indisputable truth and that it is better to verify as soon as possible whether there are cases for which this model cannot be used.
ROYAL BOX
GALILEO GALILEI
ABSTRACTS
n. 14 – IL METODO SPERIMENTALE 
2.c.11 – What are the advantages of the experimental method?
What are the advantages of the experimental method?
To summarize the above, the method consists of three steps: observation of the phenomenon, creation of a mathematical model and its experimental verification. In the development of any belief, we find instead: observation of a phenomenon, creation of a mental model and, occasionally, the research of some confirmation to the thesis.
The path that our mind follows to produce new knowledge is basically the same, it is probably the only one that our mind can do, but in experimental research, observation is much more accurate and precise thanks to the use of measuring instruments and to the analysis by grades of the phenomenon, it is furthermore objective and therefore has general validity; the same can be said of the creation of the model that is much more detailed and accurate through the use of mathematics and measures; the main difference is anyway in the experimental verification: it is always (not occasionally) applied and allows to immediately find out if the model is wrong; its aim therefore is not to confirm our thesis to reassure us on the validity of our idea, but to see if it exactly reflects reality and to what extent; the goal is to refine the model or replace it with a better one and the consequences of this aspect of the experimental verification are very important:
– models are replaced with new ones when they have a greater accuracy or broader scope of validity; the models of science therefore always improve, while opinions, beliefs and superstitions change, adapting to the new socio-cultural contexts, but the beliefs of today, true or false they may be, are no more accurate and no more valid than those of a thousand years ago; in other words, science doesn’t only evolve like any cultural form, but develops with always positive mutations, in every age and every place.
– all models are valid in a certain number of well-known cases, namely those where the experimental verification has been successful, and will always remain so even when they are superseded by better models; so if the new models are valid in a larger number of cases or are more precise, but at the same time are more complicated and difficult to use, it would be still possible to use the old models, for convenience. This is a new application of the principle of mental economy, which in this case, however, does not affect the research with reactionary attitudes.
Speaking of progress, however, it is appropriate to distinguish between science and technology: the science is the study of nature, while the technology is the study of how to build tools using the knowledge provided by science. The two concepts are closely tied, but it is important to note that scientific progress is always a progress for humanity, as increases its capacity to understand the nature and then to live into it, while we cannot say the same of technological progress, which can be used for the good of humanity, but also against it: war technology and polluting industries are an example. The confusion between scientific progress and technological progress is another source of psychological pollution that has to be removed.
ROYAL BOX
ISAAC NEWTON 
2.c.12 – Is science truly rational?
Is science truly rational?
Stating that science is rational is a triviality; however, saying that it is as rational as every belief and superstition leaves the interlocutors at least puzzled, but the validity of this statement is proven by the many philosophical schools that, basing only on reason and starting from not experimentally verified hypotheses, have rationally supported a huge number of absurdities, as the philosophy of Parmenides and Zeno, which denied the existence of the movement or the medieval scholastic that claimed to rationally demonstrate the truth of religious faith.
Normally by rationality we mean the use of deductive logic, but this unfortunately leads to accurate conclusions only if deriving from true and complete assumptions as the theorems in mathematics; making false assumptions, these theorems lead to absurd arguments. By studying the nature, there is no way of knowing, through reasoning, if our assumptions are true and especially if they are complete, since there can always be the intervention of an unknown phenomenon. It is therefore necessary to rely on evidence of facts through observations and experimental tests, and these procedures are what makes the difference, not the reason; we should not make confusion between science and experimental mathematics, which instead is based on deductive logic. While it is true that science makes great use of mathematics and hence of logic, rationality alone is not sufficient to overcome the superstitions, indeed in many cases it was used to confirm them; on this regard we might recall all the philosophical theories based on metaphysics and various economic theories, as the absolute liberalism or communism, in which logic and mathematics were used to demonstrate what people wanted to believe.
The differences between science and superstition are then significant, but it should be reminded that the logic which they are based on, is the same i.e. to create a mental model consistent with certain experiences. When it comes to a conflict between science and superstition based on a conflict between the rationality of the first and the irrationality of the second, we feed a commonplace which is a superstition itself: superstitions are not irrational, the logic upon which they are based, is the very essence of science and the contrast is due to a simple rivalry between different beliefs and cultures. What may seem irrational is the attachment that human beings demonstrate against their superstitions when they are denied and overtaken by science, but today we know that it is a natural consequence of the mental logic imposing to defend our system of belief as long as the same is useful to our unconscious. Reason is an instrument of our mind that is dominated by thoughts and desires of which we often do not notice the existence; it is therefore at the service of what we want, of wishes that sometimes are unconscious, and not of the truth; without the experimental method, reason is a tool in the service of superstition.
The experimental method of science is enormously more accurate and reliable of the natural process of beliefs, but is also enormously more expensive in terms of time, resources and human resources and therefore does not meet the usual criteria of mental economy; to confirm what we have seen, there is the fact that the experimental method does not plan to ignore uncomfortable observations, but rather uses them as an important opportunity to produce new knowledge. All this shows us that there is a different fundamental purpose: science objective is not to provide a common mental map to navigate in everyday life, it would be too tiring, but to create a detailed description of nature for the whole community, which will receive it more or less unconsciously. The scientific research is an extension of human curiosity, aims to build a wealth of knowledge to exploit later in the various activities of the human community rather than in those of the individual, and hence its importance and joint use of many men and means. In the creation of a normal opinion, our mind searches instead a simple model that costs little time and effort and that is consistent with experience; this belief should not be criticized except in cases of extreme necessity; in science things work differently, scientists are at the service of the community, not studying nature to solve the problems of their daily lives but seeking a knowledge as perfect as possible to be used by successive generations and for this reason scientific theories are to be criticized at every opportunity in order to refine them.
2.c.13 – What are the limits of science?
What are the limits of science?
What are the weaknesses of experimental science? Looking at the first step of this method, namely observation and measurement, we can see how it can only work if we know the right dimension to be measured; how could we explore lightning without knowing quantities as electricity, electric charge and electric field? The physics of electromagnetism has begun to develop only with the introduction of these concepts. If it is not clear what to measure, it is necessary to wait for someone to clarify it and until then we will remain in a stalemate, as it happens with very complex phenomena as biological, in which it is difficult to identify the main causes of the many existing ones. More than real limits, those cited above are some factors of delay as they are generally solved over time.
The product of scientific research is only a mathematical model, idealized and in the best of possibilities simplified, of reality but even this is not a real limit because although it is true that scientific theories are not the perfect truth, we know that the error is small enough so that everything goes as if it were, indeed any simplifications make it easier to make mathematical calculations and models easier to use.
A real limit of the scientific method is that this method is too slow and challenging for the needs of everyday life: the common man cannot use it to interpret the personal experiences, it is a tool for specialists of the study of nature.
Human being therefore continues to produce beliefs in a little rigorous manner, both because it’s in his nature and because it is a still essential activity; science made obsolete many old beliefs by replacing them with its models, but these have been accepted as new superstitions, not according to a new scientific mentality; for example, the astrological model, according to which the stars revolve around the Earth influencing people’s lives on the basis of the date of birth, was disregarded by many in favor of the model of universal gravitation, which states that the stars are moving by inertia or by the force of gravity and have no influence on lives of individuals, but those who have accepted the new model almost always completely ignore the scientific basis which form the foundation of it and therefore do not know why it is better than the previous one.
Also science cannot replace the system of beliefs in human beings since Its purpose is to describe reality, but reality does not interest us much, we know that our mind has other needs than the search for truth, our imaginary world doesn’t have to be true, but functional for meeting the needs dictated by the unconscious like the mental economy, the desire for prestige, for security, conformism, love, etc..; the truth is not always able to meet these needs rooted in our genes and therefore the scientific truths sometimes are refused or modified: remember the attempts to scientifically prove the superiority of white on black race, on the basis of the theory of evolution or on the slight differences of cranial shape. The superstitions are therefore a natural phenomenon deeply rooted in the human being and, like sexual desire, this is a phenomenon that can be managed but not eliminated; nature provides that our personal belief is updated, but to replace a belief with a truth often is not sufficient, the truth is not enough, the replacement must be done with a new model consistent with the scientific model, but also with human psychology, otherwise it will never be an appropriate model.
The foregoing considerations lead us to another limit of science that is the humanity of scientists; as human beings they tend to reject what is uncomfortable, suffer the influence of political or religious ideologies and consequently can make non objective interpretations and judgments about the experimental data; in recent time began to spread rumors on concealment or manipulation of experimental data to favor the economic interests of large pharmaceutical or oil companies: perhaps this is just rumors, but the risk for the future is certainly real as scholars cannot all be immune to corruption.
Speaking of corruption of scientists as a limit is not entirely correct; indeed it is a real danger, a disease that can paralyze one of our most precious resources, the only method available to us that pushes us toward a real progress.
Science is finally a study restricted to natural phenomena and this is a limit intrinsic to its nature; the attempt to apply the experimental method to the laws of economy has produced a large number of failures; this is because the laws of nature do not vary over time while those of the human community do with remarkable speed, being linked to cultural evolution. The experimental method cannot be used profitably to represent some laws that vary in a few years, because even the best models become unusable with the same speed.
It is not excluded that new methods may appear with features similar to the experimental method; we know that the strengths of science are: precise observations, accurate models and continuous improvement; we can find these three characteristics in the qualities management systems that had so much success in Japan since the eighties of the last century; it may be the first step to bring progress beyond the limits of the study of nature.
AN OPEN QUESTION
THE HOMEOPATHY
2.c.14 – What binds advertising and unconscious?
What binds advertising and unconscious?
We said in our minds that there is a management system that can automatically update according to the experiences we do in our lives; in other words our unconscious is updated by itself following criteria of its own and, in particular, the new ideas are accepted only if they do not destabilize the system of beliefs that is already formed; another aspect of that principle is that the old opinions, well consolidated, will not be put into question if it is not really necessary, but how do we evaluate when it is necessary? One of the key factors seems to be the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction that such beliefs bring when used: we have all accepted, or at least it seemed to make sense, the theory according to which man is a being superior to animals, being more complex, more evolved, the most recent and modern product of evolution; but if someone proves that there is an insect or a worm appeared from few millennia with a much more complex anatomy of us, here the juxtaposition of complexity -superiority would now look less reasonable, because it should recognize the superiority of the insect and this would absolutely not be gratifying; we’d immediately afterwards say that the superiority depends by intelligence or any other thing lacking in our rival. Here’s how an old cliché may be immediately removed when it is unsatisfactory for our self-esteem.
Another important factor are the emotions; we all know that a big fear had during a car accident can compel us to review the value of prudence and confidence in ourselves at the wheel. Strong emotions and strong feelings remain engraved for long time in our memory, often forever.
The basis of learning, experience, it is more or less incisive according to the intensity of emotions and feelings; it was shown that this effect is also given by the repetition of the same experience and in fact all of us are pretty good at what we do every day; the awareness of the repetition of experiences leads to reassess the educational meaning of rituality.
The modern psychology has deepened these arguments showing that process can also be culturally activated by telling fictitious experiences, narrating frightful or romantic stories, describing exotic places and giving interesting material to our mind to build its models of the world. The results are in all forms of advertising that beset us every day: If we look with a critical eye TV commercials, we will see that they tell us little about the product and even less about what makes it different from rival products, but then what is the use of all those elaborated pictures and complex soundtracks? Why seeking the best directors for these movies? We need to communicate, but not with our conscience; sounds and images are a language of sensations, a language understandable directly by the unconscious because advertisers and their psychologists know that this is the dominant part, the seat of our will, the party to convince; once met the goal of stimulating an unconscious desire, the purchase is warranted, because our conscious part, as always, will execute the order; this is why advertisements are full of beautiful women, people smiling, beautiful landscapes with harmonious music; the association product-good life must be formed, an association that to our minds seems more secure with greater frequency of repetition, here’s why advertising is so obsessive, it is a subtle manipulation of our hidden mind, that in modern language is so simplistically defined persuasion.
ROYAL BOX
JOHN WATSON
2.c.15 – What binds religion and education?
What binds religion and education?
The fundamental principles of advertising, however, are always used also for the purpose of education: in all places and all ages there have been mothers and grandmothers who told tales to their children; these are not just techniques to make the descendants sleep, they represent a tool to communicate instructive messages on what is good and what is evil, what dangers lie ahead in adult life and how we should behave; a typical example is the tale of Pinocchio, which teaches that we should not tell lies, do not be disobedient, we must not trust strangers or appearances. The tales narrate fantastic and unreal but very stimulating stories, evoking magnificent images and strong sensations, unforgettable for children who, not having yet developed to their full their rational capacities, have particular need of this type of language. The same technique is used by religions around the world: in fact all of them have their own mythology made of fantastic tales that is used to introduce and justify their moral principles, customs and criteria to distinguish a good behavior from a wrong.
From the mists of time our mothers and our religions apply what psychology has only recently discovered; these applications haven’t been intentional, however, they are the result of cultural evolution of our species. The tales may also be improvised, exaggerating experiences of people’s lives, while religions are much more deeply rooted in the collective culture: they offer models of common behavior for the whole community on the basis of the same vision of the world; without religions, everybody would have a mental map significantly different from that of the others and would be much more difficult to live in society; the educational and social function of the ancient religions is much more important and profound that we might imagine until recent times; they are the instrument that evolution has produced to manage culture in a collective and unconscious manner, training and educating a kind of common unconscious, ensuring a significant uniformity of desires, values and behaviors.
It is historically proven that religions evolve with the society to which they belong and probably do so since words exist; several clues suggest that the human brain is genetically prepared to take on religious attitudes, it follows that religion is part of human nature and, as we have seen for sexuality and superstitions, can be managed but not eliminated. The man naturally produces beliefs and superstitions, and if we try to replace them with science, the result is that the science will be accepted as a common superstition; for the nature of our minds, a belief must be supplanted by another belief and it is a logical thing because the new conviction must play the same role of the old one, like a religion can at most be replaced with another religious doctrine; the secular policies and even atheistic doctrines as communism have been absorbed by the population as religious doctrines, resulting in typical attitudes of devotion to the symbols characteristic of the party or to the charismatic leaders, fully comparable to the prophets or saints with a statue and commemorative portraits to hang in celebrative places; many events appear as religious processions and like these have generally the only effect of strengthening the sense of belonging to the group. Religions have the natural function of spiritual leader of society, and anything that leads the society and has a charismatic role in it takes accordingly in our minds a religious role; this is true for the political leaders, but also for celebrities like famous singers, actors and footballers, whose clothes or fragments of them are preserved as precious relics belonged to a saint or even sold at auction at incredible prices; similarly to what happens with the sacred images, the children hang the pictures of players in the room and the girls do the same with the singers, having clearly divinized them.
The man is a naturally religious animal, both on genetic and cultural basis; the genetic aspect is the result of natural selection that has privileged human beings with a religious establishment as it is a powerful social glue between individuals who, as we know. have in socialization one of the main resources for survival, while the cultural aspect has taken steps to strengthen this predisposition by structuring and organizing it. The path followed by religions for education, consisting of mythology, moral values and behavior patterns, is therefore the natural path for the education of the human being, what we have to follow to manage our culture in a conscious way. If we want to update our culture based on new needs, we must partly rebuild our mental map from representation of nature and putting it in the appropriate benchmarks to develop models of behavior.
With regard to the representation of nature, experimental science provides us models already more accurate than we need, in television documentaries it is also already made a very impressive presentation, sometimes too spectacular, but suited to be understood and to involve all our minds; on this basis we must now do the second step, which is to establish that what is good and what is bad for us, identifying benchmarks for the right behavior, traditionally called moral values.
THE FAMOUS CASE
GIOVANNI BOSCO
n. 15 – RELIGIONE ED EDUCAZIONE
